Body

According to Pierre-Marie David of the University of Montreal's Faculty of Pharmacy, stock-outs of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in recent years in the Central African Republic have had a dramatic impact on the health of HIV-infected people. These shortages have also created mistrust among patients toward the political and medical actors responsible for the fight against HIV/AIDS. And their wariness is likely to reduce their chances of getting better.

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – An early phase clinical trial of a vaginal ring containing the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs dapivirine and maraviroc found the ring was safe in women who wore it for 28 days and evidence of dapivirine in cervical tissue and blood.

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – A new analysis by researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) confirms what they and many others had already assumed: The behavioral measures used for assessing adherence in the VOICE study – an HIV prevention trial that involved more than 5,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa – did not provide accurate information about women's use and nonuse of the products being tested.

A more accurate and successful, yet complex approach used in designing an airplane is now taking off in the health care industry. The end result is helping patients with pulmonary disorders breathe easier, as well as their surgeons in considering novel treatment approaches.

In Sweden alone, an estimated 2 000 young women of fertile age cannot become pregnant either because they were born without a womb or lost it later due to disease.

Professor Mats Brännström, researcher at the University of Gothenburg and chief physician, is leading a unique research project aiming to make it possible for these women to have a uterus transplant and then get pregnant.

A decade of research

Toronto – An extensive study of initial public offerings shows dramatic changes in the IPO landscape around the world over the past two decades, including a large decrease in the importance of IPOs in the United States while IPOs became more important in other countries. This drop in U.S. IPOs cannot be explained by stricter regulations enacted after the corporate and accounting scandals in the early part of the 2000s.

New Rochelle, NY, March 4, 2014—Only about 37% of babies around the world are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The benefits of breastfeeding for both infants and mothers are well-established. The effectiveness of different types of interventions for promoting exclusive breastfeeding in high-income countries is the focus of a Review article published in Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

ITHACA, N.Y. – Crops genetically modified with the bacterium Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) produce proteins that kill pest insects. Steady exposure has prompted concern that pests will develop resistance to these proteins, making Bt plants ineffective.

Cornell research shows that the combination of natural enemies, such as ladybeetles, with Bt crops delays a pest's ability to evolve resistance to these insecticidal proteins.

Taiwanese teenagers – and especially females – who become sexually active at a very young age are more likely to be rule-breakers and be more aggressive than their peers. These are the findings of a national study of Taiwanese youth led by Wei J. Chen of the National Taiwan University, with Chia-Hua Chan as first author. It is published in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS. AND BOSTON -- When a person suffers a broken bone, treatment calls for the surgeon to insert screws and plates to help bond the broken sections and enable the fracture to heal. These "fixation devices" are usually made of metal alloys.

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – Women who used an injectable contraceptive called DMPA were more likely to acquire HIV than women using a similar product called NET-EN, according to a secondary analysis of data from a large HIV prevention trial called VOICE, researchers from the National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) reported today at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have discovered a link between prostate cancer aggressiveness and the accumulation of a compound produced when cholesterol is metabolized in cells, findings that could bring new diagnostic and treatment methods.Findings also suggest that a class of drugs previously developed to treat atherosclerosis might be repurposed for treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

Scientists have created temperature maps to explain how reduced ignition propensity (RIP) bands influence cigarette burn rate and possibly the chemical composition of the resulting smoke.

RIP bands are designed to make a cigarette go out if it is not being actively smoked. Previous studies have shown a significant increase in levels of biomarkers for a few polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in smokers of RIP cigarettes, although the toxicological implications of these increases are currently unknown (June et al. Tobacco Induced Diseases 2011, 9:13).

Several fertility clinics across the country are beginning to administer testosterone, either through a patch or a gel on the skin, to increase the number of eggs produced by certain women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF). Women are also purchasing the over-the-counter supplement DHEA, which is converted by the body into testosterone, to boost their chances of pregnancy with IVF.

Harvard stem cell scientists have successfully converted skins cells from patients with early-onset Alzheimer's into the types of neurons that are affected by the disease, making it possible for the first time to study this leading form of dementia in living human cells. This may also make it possible to develop therapies far more quickly and accurately than before.